Simon Davison, the founder, president, and CEO of P1 Padel in Las Vegas, is someone who’s obviously far more focused on the promise of the future, rather than the problems of the past. (And he also obviously sees a lot of promise in the future of padel in the U.S.)
Case in point, during a recent conversation about the first-ever USPA Major that P1 Padel will be hosting in Las Vegas from May 17 to 19, Davison does briefly lament that their eight-court facility probably could and should have already hosted multiple Majors in the past given its size, not to mention the stature and climate of Las Vegas itself.
But rather than dwell on what the previous ownership group wasn’t able to accomplish, he instead quickly moves on to talking about how he hopes as many P1 members will seize the opportunity to play in a Major like this while they still can.
At first, I take it as a comment about the age of his members, but then quickly realize he’s just forecasting that padel is going to get so big so fast here in the U.S. that even above-average club players may soon no longer have the skill to compete in the highest level tournaments.
(And given how many top-tier racket sports talents from around the world, like Spain’s Guillermo Jimenez Cagigas, are now coming from overseas to work and compete in the U.S. padel world, he may well be right — and even sooner than he’s forecasting).
Coming In With a Bang… After (Almost) Going Out With a Whimper
Although this will be P1 Padel’s first time hosting a USPA Major, in very typical Las Vegas fashion, Davison and his team have decided to really roll the dice and pull out all the stops for their inaugural effort, including offering the biggest prize pool of any USPA Major to date. And as I quickly learn from our conversation, it’s also very typical Davison fashion to go all-in on any endeavor he gets involved with.
In telling me about how he came to launch P1 in Vegas, Davison briefly mentions his “other business” to me as casually as if he were talking about a hobby he sometimes dabbles in.
As it turns out that other business is actually a global escape room franchise known as Escapology, which has dozens upon dozens of locations around the world, including everywhere from Dallas to the Dominican Republic, Orlando to the United Arab Emirates. So I take it Davison isn’t someone who just hopes for success, he expects it.
Of his eventual club takeover, Davison explains, “We’d been looking for a [padel] venue in Vegas for about six months… and they are just hard to find. But we’ve got two [Escapology] venues in Vegas, so we’ve got real estate contacts here. And I know where every last padel club on the planet is, I’m just obsessive with finding out what’s happening everywhere…
So, I obviously knew the RRA padel club already existed in Las Vegas, but based on all my research, it seemed like it was a bit of a dead club — nobody answered my calls, my emails, nothing — and it just didn’t add up. You’ve got this beautiful eight-court padel center in the middle of Las Vegas and there’s nothing going on.”
One morning Davison’s real estate contact got an email saying that, “a Las Vegas padel center had become available,” and he realized that rather than looking for a warehouse big enough to build a new padel club, he could potentially just turn this existing Las Vegas club into something really special.
“At the time [RRA] was seeking to lease out their 4,000-square-foot luxury, purpose-built [clubhouse] with locker rooms and showers and a kitchen and all the rest of it as a standalone restaurant or cafe — and then almost carve off the padel side and just let dwindle away. When we turned up the members were just having to let themselves in the side gate,” he tells me.
“I Know One of Those Two Things Isn’t True”
Davison continues, “So this opportunity landed on our desk. And, knowing a few people like I do in the padel world, I kind of found out who the owner was and got in touch. Someone else was actually just about to take it over, but fortunately the owner’s accent was exactly the same as mine, which is fairly rare.”
He quickly clarifies, “You see, [our real-estate contact] had initially told me the owner was ‘a very rich man from London’ — and as you may be able to tell from my accent, I’m not from London. But when I called him and he answered the accent was exactly the same as mine. So I said to him, ‘F-ck me, I was told you were a very rich man from London — and I know one of those two things isn’t true.”
They had a laugh, and as it turns out the former owner was basically raised in the same small village where Davison’s parents grew up in the northeast of England. What’s more, they even had some very close connections in common.
“So, we got on really well and ended up doing a deal,” Davison says of P1’s eventual takeover of the original RRA club a little less than a year ago (June 1 will be the one year anniversary of P1’s launch).
The Next Chapter
Davison notes that, for the moment at least, there aren’t too many padel clubs around the U.S. that are big enough to host a Major, though he points out that is rapidly changing. He also realizes that with the explosive growth of clubs around the U.S., the competition between clubs to host a Major will soon be very intense.
For now though, Davison and his team are just focusing on doing everything they can to put together a showstopper of a tournament that will bring USPA Majors and other big-time tournaments back to Vegas time and time again over the coming years.
As noted, their $21,000 prize pool — a nod to the special place the number 21 holds in Vegas — is the largest ever offered by a USPA tournament. Davison jokes, “hosting this in Vegas probably ended up costing us $1,000 more than it should have, but it is what it is.”
Major sponsors for the tournament include everyone from Playbypoint to Sportsfield Specialties to Nox, with Slazenger serving as the ball sponsor, Osaka serving as the shirt sponsor, and Padel Travel Club serving as the travel sponsor.
Matt Oakley, who was recently brought on to serve as a development manager for P1, also notes that Save My Play and long-time global padel supporters Estrella Damm are also involved.
Ultimately Davison says, “We’ve got some great partners backing it and supporting it, and we’re anticipating a great event.”
The P1 Las Vegas Open will be accepting entries through May 9 via Padel Manager and tickets for the event can be purchased here.
